


Scotty

by NotADragon



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/M, Kind of fluffy, Not too angsty, One Shot, not too much pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-03 22:10:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14005890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotADragon/pseuds/NotADragon
Summary: A one shot about nicknames. Post 2018 Olympics with tiny flashbacks.





	Scotty

**Author's Note:**

> I cannot believe I wrote RPF. I'm so sorry, my deepest apologies to the actual real people. Seriously, I'm sorry.  
> I had this silly little idea and I just had to write it. Obviously this is not based in reality.

Tessa doesn’t know when she started getting tired so easily. It hadn’t even been that busy of a day, just yoga and working on exhibition choreography. The days in the past couple years leading up to the Olympics had been infinitely more tiring than today, physically and emotionally. And yet, Wheel of Fortune had barely started and she could hardly keep her eyes open. She snuggled farther into Scott’s side, pulling the throw blanket a little tighter over herself. His lips pressed against the top of her head in response.

As Pat introduced the contestants, Tessa let her eyes flutter shut. She made it through Jeopardy, and that’s what really counted. If she fell asleep now, oh well, it wouldn’t be the first time. After a quiet night it, it wasn’t unusual for her to wake up and find herself tucked into her side of Scott’s bed. Well, she thought of it as her side even though she would never say that out loud. She’d roll over and see Scott on his side of the bed, and then usually just go back to sleep. Sometimes instead of moving a sleeping Tessa, Scott would have fallen asleep too and she’d wake up in his warm arms on the couch. That was both more uncomfortable, because of the couch angles and position, but also more cozy. She didn’t know which kind of morning she would wake up to tomorrow, but it seemed increasing unlikely to her that she would manage to get up and drive herself back to her apartment. Oh well.

“Hey T?” Scott murmured softly. He probably thought she was already asleep and was just testing it. She hummed in response, too lazy to form words.

“Can I ask you something?”

Tessa nodded into his shoulder.

“Why do you call me Scott?”

She giggled. She couldn’t help it. “Did I miss something? Did you change your name between dinner and now?”

His arm released her side only to stroke her hair instead. “No, kiddo. I mean, you only ever call me Scott. Not Scotty. Not anything else.”

“Did you want me to call you Scotty?” Tessa had literally no clue where he was going with this. They’d been together for 21 years (well, not together together. Skating partners. Business partners. Best friends.) and he chose now to take a problem with her using his name?

She felt him shrug. “Not really. I was just wondering. I mean everyone else does. My parents. My brothers. My friends. Hell, your family even does Tess. You’re the only one who doesn’t. You never have.”

“I don’t know Scott. I just don’t.”

“Right, forget it, never mind.”

But obviously, she couldn’t just forget it now. The wheel spun around on tv, landing on bankrupt, and Tessa’s mind spun as the contestant groaned.

He was right. She had never once called him Scotty. But he had plenty of nicknames for her. So much so that he almost never called her Tessa except when talking about her in interviews. It was always T, or Tess, or Tutu, or Kiddo. The last two were the first two that he had come up with for her, not long after they started skating together.

 

After their very first competition season for ice dance, it was recital time for her ballet class. They still skated, her and Scott, but less than they had been during the season. Instead, her excitement was all channeled towards her new ballet routine, her new costume. After the fitting, when she got to take her costume home, her mom couldn’t get her to take it off. Even though her mom warned her she might wreck it before her recital, and wouldn’t she be upset then, Tessa had insisted upon wearing it to the rink.

The outfit was a blue body suit with a tutu, but a proper tutu. The kind that stuck straight out from her waist, like the older girls wore in the real ballets. It was her first tutu that wasn’t just layers of tulle falling downwards like a skirt, and she felt like a proper ballerina for the first time.

Scott was already on the ice when she showed up that day, fooling around with his hockey stick and a puck. There were no nets on the ice though, so he was just pushing the punk around really. He didn’t seem to notice her as her mom helped her tie her skates nice and tight. She took off her skate guards and walked over to join him on the ice.

He must have heard the gate click open because he skated over to her just as soon as she was stepping onto the ice.

“Hey Tutu,” he called out as he approached, practicing his stickhandling still. “I thought we were here to skate.”

Tessa blushed a little. But she was trying to be more confident, so took a deep breath and replied “I thought we were here to ice dance, but you seem to have a hockey stick instead of a partner.”

He quickly reached over and put his stick on the side of the ice and grabbed her hand. Not in dance hold, just like normal hand holding. He raised up their hands together.

“Nope, I’ve got my partner right here.”

She giggled and pushed off, starting to stroke around the rink with him.

“I don’t think we can practice our routine today,” Scott said after a few laps.

Tessa peeked over at him, and replied in a quiet tone, “Why not?” Had she done something bad?

“I don’t think I can hold your waist with this tutu in the way.”

“Oh,” Tessa sighed in relief.

They tried their routine anyways, but Scott was right and it was kind of a bother. Her mom was relieved that Tessa didn’t try to wear it again to practice. The nickname still stuck though.

  
  
Kiddo had made its first appearance the first time they made it onto a podium. They’d hugged after he helped her step off, and she’d said “I’m so proud of us.” He’d replied, “I’m so proud of you Kiddo.” She’d been too happy at that moment to bother reminding him that she was only two years younger than him. But then he used it again. And again. And it was too late for her to kick up a fuss about it. Besides, he usually had this tone, this soft tone, which went with it. It was never really mocking. So somehow at 28 she was still Kiddo to him.

 

A Visa commercial played. A normal one, not an Olympic one. Not their Olympic commercial. Tessa had never actually seen that one live on tv, although her mom had it saved a whole bunch of times on her PVR apparently.

They were almost at the end of the episode, but Tessa was wide awake. She couldn’t stop her brain from thinking, trying to justify why she didn’t have any nicknames for Scott. What should she have been calling him all these years? She had been so shy when she was little, that it never would have occurred to her to pick a nickname for him. And then when they were older, what kind of nicknames do girls even give guys? His buddies hadn’t really called him anything other than Scotty. And if she had started using terms of endearments, his constant girlfriends wouldn’t have liked that very much. Not that they had ever liked anything about her and her relationship with him anyways. Whatever. None of them had lasted, so she should probably just let it go. He hadn’t dated anyone in the past couple years anyways which made it strange for her to still be protective of her relationship with him. Not jealous though. There was no reason to be jealous of them now. They had called him Scotty though.

The final puzzle was starting, with Vanna revealing the common letters.

She didn’t look at him. It was easier to just keep her head tucked up against him and watch the tv. But she knew she should try to answer his question.

“I think,” Tessa began tentatively. Scott startled a little beside her, after twenty minutes of silence between them. “I think that you have just never felt like Scotty to me?”

He gave her arm a little squeeze but didn’t interrupt her. “Scotty feels like Danny’s little brother to me. He’s the guy who yells at refs, or the boy gets told by his mom to stop waving his hockey stick in the air while he’s talking. Scotty goes out with his buddies to the bar, or is the silly uncle doting on all this little niblings.

“Scotty isn’t the boy who took my hand, all serious, that first day on the rink. That was Scott. Scott is who has looked out for me for twenty-some years. Scott checked in on me at my new school when I was all alone and had no friends. Scott is the one who held me after Sochi. Scott is the one who drove slower when I was in the car even though he was seventeen and wanted to speed back to Canada. Scott refused to get another partner even when I was mad at him and he was mad at me and we didn’t even know if I would ever skate again. Scott takes my suitcase for me and carries it through the airport along with his own. Scott doesn’t hold it against me when I’m cranky in the mornings.

“You look out for me. You look after me. You’ve always been there. And Scotty just doesn’t seem to cover how important you are to me.”

Pressed up against his chest, it would have been impossible for her not to notice how ragged and uneven his breathing got as she talked. She did what they always do, except they were sitting down which made the position a bit awkward. Moving the blanket, she threw her legs across her lap as she turned towards him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him towards her. Her head nuzzled into his neck. His arms instinctively wrapped tight around her waist, hands pressed into her back. She took a deep breath. And another. And another. Soon he followed along.

Wheel of Fortune had to be over by now, but Tessa had tuned out of the show in her mind long ago. She didn’t know how long they stayed like that until he finally replied.

“So Scott sums up everything I am to you?”

She pulled back just enough so she could look at him. She was really too close, their noses barely not touching, but she didn’t want to release him anymore right now.

“No, I’m not sure there’s any name that could sum up everything you are to me. I mean, I could try, but the only thing that could come close would be…”

In that moment, she knew. She knew the only term that properly encompassed how she felt about him. After all the years, through everything. Except it was too much. It was too far. It was the term she knew in her heart was right, but she couldn’t use it. After all, they were partners. They weren’t together. And platonic friends did not use the term she had in mind, even if she knew in her soul that it was right.

“What?” he pressed when it was clear she wasn’t going to finish her sentence. She felt his breathe ghost over her lips as he spoke.

She shook her head and gave him a small smile. “Nothing,” she lied. “There’s no term for it.”

He knew she was lying. She knew he knew. They always knew.

He knew she was about to pull back. One of his hands slid up her back to cup her head. To hold her close.

“What is it Tess? Tell me.”

She couldn’t. It would wreck everything. He didn’t want her like that. He was everything to her, and she was everything to him except for that last part. “It doesn’t work. We’re not… You don’t…”

Everything in her told her to run. To get up and go. Protect herself. Because him outright turning her down, him denying her this would crush her. She should have just kept her damn mouth shut without trying to answer his question.

But she couldn’t break away from his gaze. Couldn’t bring herself to take herself out of his hold. Not when he was looking at her like that. He always looked at her like that. Like she was the only thing in his world. And it had held her here, in his arms, for decades. Despite the fact it wasn’t true. If it was, he never would have dated those other women. Even if she had never seen him look at them like this. Even if he had never stopped looking at her like this. Like he felt it too.

“Who am I to you T?”

Fuck. She couldn’t stop herself. “My love,” she whispered.

That’s it. That’s the moment she expected the world to stop turning. For her world to come crashing down. For him to back off, close off, stop looking at her like that because he didn’t feel it too.

But it didn’t.

She didn’t even have time to start panicking before his lips were on hers. He pulled her closer and she instinctually laced her hands into his hair. Like she always wanted to do, but had never let herself. She couldn’t think about anything but getting closer to him, somehow, despite already being pressed against him with his tongue exploring her mouth for the first time. Oh god, why the hell had they waited this long?

It’s Scott. Her Scott. Her love. Her everything. She shifted to swing one leg back across his lap to straddle him properly, allowing her to get just that little bit closer. It still wasn’t enough. But he took the opportunity to move break off the kiss. Instead, he fixed his attention on her jaw, her neck, her earlobe. As his teeth grazed against her skin, she couldn’t help but moan. He grasped her harder, since he couldn’t pull her any closer, and fixated on that spot behind her ear.

“Oh Scott,” she sighed, completely overwhelmed in the best way.

And he froze. Pulled back. Just a little bit, but enough for her brain to begin racing. Fuck, she had ruined it already. He was coming to his senses. She knew he hadn’t felt the same way, he had just been caught up in the moment and she wrecked it.

“Don’t call me that.” His voice was low and raw, not at all like she was used to hearing. “Use the other.”

His eyes were dark, too intense, and yet he was still looking at her the same way he always did. She tentatively slid one hand from his hair, traced his jaw, cupped his cheek. “My love?”

And he crashed back into her again, nipping at her bottom lip, caressing her tongue with his. All encompassing. Her everything.

He pulled back again, leaving her to gasp for air. He cradled her face in his hand. “I’m yours,” he said solemnly. “I’ve always been yours. I’ll always be yours Tess.”

She’s always been his. And he’s finally hers.

 

The sun streams into her eyes and she instinctively reaches to crush her pillow over her face. But there’s an extra weight against the pillow, preventing her from pulling it up. She fights the sleepiness to focus on what’s going on. She’s on her side of the bed. Scott’s bed. But his arm in also around her, like when they sleep together on the couch. His head is what’s holding her pillow down.

The morning fog clears enough that it all comes back to her. Instead of being fully dressed in Scott’s bed for once, she is just in one of his shirts. It’s much comfier than normal. He stirs a little and pulls her closer, his grip tight around her waist. She sinks back into his bare chest, the frustrating sun forgotten.

Turning in his arms, she leans up close to his ear. “Good morning love.”

“T” is all he says back before kissing her. But it’s okay. She knows that all his nicknames for her mean exactly the same as her singular nickname means for him.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still so sorry I wrote this. But there is already so much really good fic, that like can one more story really hurt? (Probably. I'm sorry.)
> 
> Find me on tumblr here: https://obviouslynotadragon.tumblr.com/


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